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The South Rim

Ashley Graegin

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On the mantle sat a framed photograph: my family and I standing on tri-colored sedimentary rock, behind us, an endless landscape of canyons. Well, most of us were standing. Reese sat on a layer of rock, and my other sisters leaned in so that their bodies overlapped in the photograph. I stood a few feet away, my bent arm, resting on my camera case. It must have been windy because curly hair flew around my mother’s face. We were all squinting at the too-bright sun. I was almost seventeen.

Here is what I remember: That past school year, I had studied Transcendentalist literature, and my teacher had lectured us about the awesome and sublime. He said getting out of school early wasn’t awesome. Overlooking the vast expanse of the Grand Canyon or the magnificence of Niagara Falls—that was real awe and wonder. That was being humbled by the insignificance of your minuscule existence. That was where writers experienced the sublime. 

So I climbed up to this overlook—the one the tour guide described as the most photographed view—across this dusty landscape, trying to feel wonder. I didn’t feel anything. 

Maude and Gia were threatening to shove each other off the edge. I don’t remember what Maude had been saying, but Gia said: Jesus Christ. For once in your life, can you stop acting like you’re better than everyone else? Then Maude spat, Name one thing you’re better at than me.

A woman nearby lifted her binoculars from her eyes. She said, It just goes on and on and on and on. 

And I was so surprised a person was actually talking to me that the moment passed before I thought to speak.

Later, at the gift shop, Reese threw a tantrum over some stuffed souvenir elk. My mom told her no, then got tired and bought it. She said to me, when you get to be my age, you learn to pick your battles. 

My father ignored all of us, exchanging shitty jokes with strangers. (What’s the Grand Canyon’s favorite music? Rock and roll.) And for once in my memory, he wasn’t angry.

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Ashley Graegin teaches high school English in Central Michigan and is a member of the National Writing Project. Her creative writing has been published in Meniscus.

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